Upgrade - 83: I Love Infuriating You

Episode Date: April 4, 2016

Jason tried out the shrunken-down Smart Keyboard for the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, and you'll never believe what happened next! Myke returns from vacation just in time to break down Jason's reviews of Apple�...��s latest products and provide an Apple Watch band review of his own.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 From RelayFM, this is Upgrade, episode number 83. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, MailRoute, and FreshBooks. My name is Mike Hurley, and I'm joined by Mr. Jason Snell. Welcome back, Mike. Thank you. Good to have you back. Yeah, I've got a crazy traveling schedule so far this year. You are doing a very good job of getting some fantastic guest hosts to fill in. I very much enjoyed last week's episode, except for the point where
Starting point is 00:00:38 Ren was wrong about the iPhone 6 Plus size, but we don't need to get into that too much today. I do say I enjoy listening to the show. I love infuriating you when you're not here. It's the best. Yeah, I know. I feel like when you said, I have to say, I wasn't going to bring this up, but I'm going to bring it up now.
Starting point is 00:00:59 There was a point in the show where you said about my name being spelt incorrectly. Yes, right. What I really liked about that moment is there was never so slight editing error when you did that. And that made me smile because it was bad karma for you. Oh, I don't even know what that was. You faded in on yourself, which was very interesting. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:01:19 Interesting. So there's at least the right people to go back and find. And it put a big smile on my face. I have no idea what happened there. You mock me sir yeah that's what you get but uh i did really enjoy last week all the pencil stuff was fantastic with round um and hearing her talk about that one of my favorite things uh was when you were kind of uh making fun of her like oh you didn't get to touch the device huh didn't get to touch it that was that was that really well yeah because i mean i assume because renee had one and she was in cupertino so i i assume that they they felt like apple was giving it to renee to review and
Starting point is 00:01:54 that it would be bad form if she wrote about using the one that renee had and so i imagine that she actually had hands-on experience with it and felt that she could not discuss that and that's fine i mean that that may have those may have been the ground rules that they got for getting one early was really this is just for you don't you know this is not for your your team or your staff it's for you to review so you know that was that was painful but she's got one now so it's all good so uh i wanted to just mention something that i've been thinking about in regards to the two different pros then 12.9 and a 9.7 because i've been listening to a few things i listened to obviously last week's episode i listened to you and john gruber's very long but great episode of the talk show long so very long
Starting point is 00:02:44 um so i listened to all of that too and one of the talk show. So long. So very long. So I listened to all of that too. And one of the things that I found quite interesting, people are talking a lot about the differences between the 9-7 and the 12-9. And quite a lot of the conversation is how like the 9-7 has extra additional good features over the 12-9. But one that I was thinking about is whilst the screen has a bunch of great new technology in it that makes it great for color and stuff like that one of the things that it lacks over the 12.9 is the resolution so obviously it's a lower resolution screen which means that multitasking and software stuff like that is actually worse on the 9 7 because like on the 12 9 you get like two ipad apps basically in portrait side by side and you don't get that on the on the 12.9, you get like two iPad apps basically in portrait side by side. And you don't get that on the Baby Pro.
Starting point is 00:03:27 And that's the, yeah, I mean, it's just there are more pixels. There are whatever, a couple million more pixels on the 12.9. And yeah, I mean, I think that kind of goes with the, obviously it did go without saying because we didn't say it. But the idea there that when you're using it like with a computer screen right you can fit more stuff on the screen and then if you're not using the keyboard it's even worse because then that keyboard slides up and takes over a large percentage of the screen which in split screen mode is dumb yeah because the keyboard is higher isn't it than it would be on the uh the 12.9 because the the 12.9 keyboard is wider so you actually lose out quite a bit there and i just thought that's um an interesting distinction to
Starting point is 00:04:13 make between the two of them that that uh it's the number one reason you would use the 12.9 over the 9.7 is the screen is bigger i mean i yeah perhaps we didn't emphasize that enough but it's a lot bigger screen that's like why you would go there nuance like everybody knows the screen is bigger but the the software doesn't scale screen wise right like it's just different on 12 unlike the mini and the and and the air which are the same number of pixels, just packed into a smaller space on the Mini. The Pro has more pixels, unless it's an app that hasn't been updated for the Pro, in which case it scales it up. But most apps, many apps, all the good apps for the iPad Pro 12.9 are using that extra space. And then when you use split screen or all of that, then you have apps that don't feel like they're hobbled by being in a split screen because there's so much space on the screen.
Starting point is 00:05:12 Yeah. So I just thought that that was an interesting thing to think about. This is just something I've been mulling over as I've been thinking about what that iPad is for me. And I don't think it's necessarily something that people are like oh that you're people are silly for not mentioning i think it might just be one of those things that comes with time to reflect and or time to actually use one right which i haven't i haven't actually seen one of these yet i know they're out in stores but uh i've been kind of tied up this weekend wrestlemania um so i haven't actually had the time to go and look at these things,
Starting point is 00:05:46 but I'm actually thinking about going to do that sometime this week just to go in and take a look. I've been looking at a lot of pictures and stuff on the website. I think one of my favorite little design flourishes on the 9.7 is the way that they integrate the antennas on the Wi-Fi model.
Starting point is 00:06:03 It looks way better than any iPad previously. You know, it has like the little white line. On the cellular model. That's what I meant. Sorry, yes, on the cellular model. Yeah, it's like color match. It's got the little scoop for the cutout, but then it's color match.
Starting point is 00:06:18 So it's just this line instead of being a whole black strip the whole way across the top. Yeah. So there you go, iPad stuff. I've seen a couple of links flying around over the last few days about further strengthening the idea that OS X will be renamed to macOS. Have you seen these? I have.
Starting point is 00:06:43 So this came from Apple Ins apple insider and there is some remnants in 10 11 4 uh which hints to mac os naming yeah i i i don't know um i think this could just be an error or something yeah i i do i i think it could be evidence it could be an error um we also heard at some point was it the event before last somebody on stage said mac os at one point and everybody went and you know it might be i mean i think it's logical that they're heading there the evidence is there it's not just me writing crazy articles on mac world saying this is what they should do, but it's like Phil Schiller said at the talk show live last year at WWDC, this is part of our strategy and there's more to come,
Starting point is 00:07:37 and I do feel like that this is the other shoe dropping. And marketing is different, so it's not necessarily evidence because they could continue to call it OS X internally. They could call it macOS internally and still call it OS X externally. So it's not proof, but it is another little addition to the pile of thought that's growing. that is that they're going to rebrand OS X as macOS, which would free them to get off the number 10 at last at the same time that iOS is probably going to number 10. Yeah, I think that it's going to happen. I'm just not...
Starting point is 00:08:18 I don't know if it will happen at WWDC. It feels like it could be a right time, right, because you get the 10 takeover. They may not even call iOS iOS 10 if they do this. Who knows? Well, you know, we've talked about that idea of like, what if they did an iOS release that was not 10, but like 9.5
Starting point is 00:08:38 and said, we're focusing on these important features and we're just going to call it 9.5. I do think that there's an argument to be made that they, that they actually call this Mac OS, uh, 10.12 anyway, only because next year they would be able to be completely in sync. And, um, and then next year they would have iOS 11 and Mac OS 11, and they would just move in lockstep from that point. But I don't know. There's so many different paths they could take, plenty of arguments in favor and against all of
Starting point is 00:09:11 them. So it'll be interesting to see what they actually do. But yeah, thumbs up to the people who look through all the text strings in all the files of all the OS releases in order to try to find things because sometimes things are revealed by looking at that stuff. So because it's not all, it's not always stripped out. This is actually I think one of the reasons this goes to that that same idea about why Apple is open about so much of the beta stuff now is because they know it's going to be out there. So, you know, the one thing they can try to protect is stuff they haven't announced yet. But that means that you need
Starting point is 00:09:49 to not release things that are, that give it away. And sometimes they release things that give it away. Yeah. More power to the people that go through that stuff. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:10:00 Yeah. It's not, that's a thankless task, but every now and then you get, you get somebody who notices something. It's magical. This week's episode is brought to you by FreshBooks. FreshBooks are here to help you, to help everyone who owns a small business to try and avoid the stress that comes with running your businesses.
Starting point is 00:10:21 And one of the main stress points, one of the biggest points that most business owners will struggle with is the money side, the invoicing side. FreshBooks help you tackle this, take control of it and wrangle your invoices. And they do this by giving you access to really intuitive and easy to use tools to create and send invoices.
Starting point is 00:10:42 You'll be up and running super quickly and you'll be able to get invoices sent out to your clients just 30 seconds. That's how long it takes to create and send invoices. You'll be up and running super quickly and you'll be able to get invoices sent out to your clients just 30 seconds. That's how long it takes to create and send. You can customize them. You can add all the information you need. You can do things like adding PO numbers and all kinds. You can change invoice numbers, whatever you need to do to make them fit in with your system or with your client systems. You can add your logo to the invoice. So it looks really great and professional. It's just a simple touch, but that customization kind of just shows a level of care on your side to your client. I think that sort of stuff is really good, and it's great that they include all of that. One of the best things about FreshBooks, one of my favorite things, is how easy they make it for your clients to pay you.
Starting point is 00:11:19 That is important. Invoices are about you getting paid, and FreshBooks make it really simple for those invoices to get paid. You can integrate with services like PayPal. You can receive payments by card. You can give all of the information that you need on the invoice, maybe for somebody to pay by bank transfer or check. And FreshBooks have their own payment system as well, which you can check out. FreshBooks customers get paid five days faster on average because of this. You can see whether your clients have looked at an invoice so you can keep track of everything as it goes through the system. If you want to keep more organized in your business, you can track your
Starting point is 00:11:54 expenses in FreshBooks. No more boxes full of receipts. You can very easily reconcile everything in their mobile app. Let's you take photos of your receipts and organize them later. They have great reporting so you can see who owes you what. They your receipts and organize them later. They have great reporting so you can see who owes you what. They have tons of third-party integrations. You can track your time in FreshBooks and they have fantastic support as well. It's super simple to get started on FreshBooks. Just trust me on this one. If you are a small business owner, you send invoices, maybe you just do client work or freelancing. Just go and check them out for the next invoice that you need to send. I use FreshBooks every single week to send out our invoices,
Starting point is 00:12:32 and it saves my butt so many times. I absolutely love it. They are offering a free 30-day trial to listeners of this show. There's no credit card needed to do it. And to claim your 30 days of unrestricted use, go to freshbooks.com slash upgrade, enter the code upgrade, U-P-G-R-A-D-E in the how you heard about us section. So you just say, oh, I heard about FreshBooks on upgrade, and you will then let them know that you heard about them through us. It just helps go that extra step just to
Starting point is 00:13:02 confirm that you've heard about the lovely FreshBooks on your favorite show, Upgrade. So go to freshbooks.com slash upgrade to find out more. Sign up for your 30-day trial unrestricted. Thank you so much to FreshBooks for their support of this show and Relay FM. So, Mr. Snell, on last week's episode with the lovely Serenity, you were talking about the 9.7-inch keyboard, and you basically just picked yours up from Apple at this point. And I don't remember the exact words, but I know that the tone and your kind of feelings at the time was, this keyboard is ridiculous. I had not used the keyboard at that point, other than the demo room it was still in the box uh because i got i drove back from cupertino and then we did the show so to kind of reiterate on it if i'm if i'm remembering correctly your
Starting point is 00:13:54 feelings were just everything was too small it was too cramped the keys were too small right like and that it was just a nice try but wasn't going to work for you that was kind of your feeling and then well i mean it's a scaled down keyboard scaled down keyboards are bad i've tried them before no bad then what happened you'll never believe what happened next um yeah so i um i went so one of the things i try to do with especially mobile products is use them like in mobile situations. So for the iPad, and I did this with the iPad pro, um, one of the things I do, I mean, I can take it to my countertop in my house and things like that, but I, uh, wanted to change the pace. Uh, and I had to actually pick up my
Starting point is 00:14:38 daughter, uh, after school and take her to a doctor's appointment. And so I had about an hour and a half before that. And I decided to drive over to, by the high school and go to the Starbucks over there and be a mobile person, right? A working from a cafe with an iPad person. Co-worker. Yeah, so 9.7 inch iPad Pro with the smart keyboard cover. I got my hot chocolate chocolate sat down at a table and
Starting point is 00:15:09 folded open the keyboard and started to type. And what I was going to do is type a section of my review about the smart keyboard. And in the end, I decided I should just post this. And I still haven't finished that review. I reviewed the iPhone SE, but the iPad, I still am halfway through that review. I have to do that early this week. But I wrote about the keyboard as on the keyboard. And as I was writing, and I was sort of doing the intro and giving some context about the describing that it's smaller. And so they scaled these keys down more and
Starting point is 00:15:45 these keys down less and all that and as i'm typing i realize i'm typing at full speed on this keyboard uh which surprised me and and when i was thinking about how i how i did it and i think the key for me was i had to keep some fingers on the keyboard like one of the advantages of these of these little uh keyboards with the that are made of basically, is it doesn't take much to depress the keys. You can feel them depress, but it's just, like, almost no force to depress them. And so if you don't move your hands very much, so you're always sort of – because orientation is a lot of the problem with scaled-down keyboards, is you lose your mental map of where the keys are, and then you have to look down and say, wait a second, where was that key again?
Starting point is 00:16:28 But if I left my... Not every finger on the keyboard at all times, but if I had a couple fingers on the keyboard knowing where they were so I could orient based on that and then put the rest of my fingers down and then type some more, almost like typing while leaving my fingers. It's hard to describe it almost like they were down the whole time, not quite, but close there. They were rather
Starting point is 00:16:52 than rather than lifting them up and waving them around and then putting them back down. I just sort of like left the fingers down, which has some there are some long term, probably RSI issues with that because you don't want to be be in super flex position all the time. But at the same time, with that Fabric keyboard, I could almost relax with my fingers sitting on that keyboard. Anyway, as long as I stayed oriented properly, then I could type. I wasn't making mistakes, and I was typing at full speed. And I was very impressed by that. Now, every time I had to type a key that was not quite in my comfort zone, so I had to shift, then I lost context, and and it expanded to 9.7-inch iPad Pro, because every time I would do the 9.7, I would have to move my hands to hit the 9,
Starting point is 00:17:51 and then hold down the shift key in order to make the period, and then reach the 7, and then reorient to get my right hand back where it needed to be on the keyboard to start typing letters again. And that was not good. So I came away impressed with the fact that it did not feel like it was impossible to type, even for me, and I'm finicky, at full speed on this keyboard. I felt like I could really do it. And so that was surprising. And then the other thing is is the number one reason i dislike
Starting point is 00:18:26 the 12.9 inch ipad pro smart keyboard is i feel like it's really bulky um it adds a lot of weight you know it's it yeah it's big i mean it's it's um it's two-thirds of the weight of the 9.7 inch iPad Pro. Yeah. I will say on this point, I use that keyboard every day. My iPad is constantly connected with that keyboard. It is my cover as well as my keyboard. You do get used to it. Like I completely agree with you.
Starting point is 00:18:58 It adds weight. It's bulky. It's huge. Like if you unroll that entire thing, it's massive. But once you get used to it, it is more than livable. I just found like I always want to rip it off. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:19:12 And so I just decided that I was not going to carry it with me all the time. And I replaced it with a smart cover instead. Yeah. When I got it, I decided to commit to it. Right. And after about a week it it was fine for me i i didn't really notice it and i was happy with the benefit that it gave me but i can more than sympathize with why somebody may feel that that keyboard is kind of cumbersome
Starting point is 00:19:39 and crazy because it is you got to use it you got to use it enough for it to be worth it yeah to have that extra exactly which i do extra bulk and i i so here's the thing um because simply because of physics this is a much smaller area that it has to cover um it's a much smaller product on the 9.7 inch and it's much lighter and i don't i don't think it's, you know, it's just not as, it's not as bulky. It doesn't seem to, to bother me as much. So carrying it around, um, with the keyboard on it, um, as a cover feels much more reasonable to me on the, on the nine, seven to the 12. Not only is the nine, seven iPad itself lighter, but then the keyboard is proportionally lighter than the version that's on the 12.9 because it's covering a much smaller area in terms of the screen size. And so it just, you can do the math. It's a lot lighter
Starting point is 00:20:33 and it's a really nice combination. So that also impressed me that the idea that you would carry this iPad, which is itself much smaller and lighter than the iPad that I've been using for the last few months. And then you have the keyboard on there too. So you can walk with that. It's very light. And then you sit down at your local cafe and you pop it open and now you've got a keyboard and you're typing at full speed. That was pretty cool. So I was, I ended up, uh, yeah, coming all the way around on the smart keyboard. Um, I think it's, I think the smallness of it is not as big a problem as I thought. And it's actually an advantage because it's i i think the smallness of it is not a as big a problem as i thought and it's actually an advantage because it's so much lighter so the funny thing is you know you
Starting point is 00:21:12 effectively uh are in getting all the benefits that i have and all the things that i enjoy about it right like the convenience you know just having this keyboard there it's part of the whole device it's also a stand like you know like all of the convenience that i enjoy but without the downsides of the physical size and weight of the thing right because the what you're describing about why you like it is exactly why i like the smart cover on my 12.9 inch ipad it's all of those reasons but there aren't those downsides yeah i mean that's and for everybody it's different i mean if you are i think that's what i said about the the bigger smart keyboard is if you use it if you need to be somebody who has always has a keyboard with you um attached to the front of your
Starting point is 00:22:00 your ipad then then yes it's worth it for you. For me, given the way that I use the iPad, I always have just brought a Bluetooth keyboard with me because I can go into that context, but a lot of times I'm not in that context and I don't want the extra weight when I'm just moving around the house. I sort of enter writing mode and power through on a hardware keyboard and then I leave it and I go back to just using the software keyboard. And so for me, it's not worth it to have that weight. But if you're using it a lot, then it's totally worth it. Yeah, it makes sense.
Starting point is 00:22:38 Let's spoil your iPad Pro 9.7-inch review a little bit by talking about the device. It's a service we can provide. Yeah, early access. To upgradians, yes. So you've had a week with this device now. Yes, sir. What are your overall feelings? Do you like this product?
Starting point is 00:22:58 I do. I think it's... I'm surprised at how much I like it. It definitely took time for me to get used to the size again, because I had moved, you know, I was an iPad mini user, and then I moved to the iPad Air 2 last summer. And then this fall, I moved to the iPad Pro this winter. So I have to remind myself, and you know and after having that big iPad Pro, the little one feels so small. Like an iPad mini, basically. Yeah. It's very strange. It's a very strange feeling. So it's taken some time to... But this is a classic iPad size. I mean, I think that's the bottom line is that this is what we think of as an iPad is this product.
Starting point is 00:23:50 And it's been upgraded with all of these other features. So I expect this will be the best-selling iPad. I think a lot of people who have older iPads will upgrade to this one because of all the new features that it's got. This is a much – it feels like a much more mainstream product than the 12.9 inch iPad Pro that I have. And I'm, you know, I like the 12.9 inch iPad Pro and I don't regret buying it at all.
Starting point is 00:24:14 But I acknowledged, I would acknowledge even at the time that it's not for everybody, right? Because it is, you gotta want all the stuff that comes with it. And unfortunately, if you wanted to use the Apple Pencil, your only option for a few months anyway was to buy that enormous iPad. And now you don't have to. You only need to buy the enormous iPad if you want an enormous iPad.
Starting point is 00:24:39 Otherwise, you can just get the 9.7-inch classic size iPad. So I think it's going to be a hit because it's what we've come to think of as an iPad, but it's got all of those features that were previously only available in the large one, which is more of an outlier. It's more of an edge case than this one. This is right in the heart of this. It's like the sweet spot of the iPad product line. So you mentioned about people that have used the iPad before would feel good upgrading to this one. Who is this product for, do you think? And how does this kind of perception of market differ to the 12.9? Well, I think pro, I understand why they use that term, and we've talked through it a lot.
Starting point is 00:25:24 The idea here is you're paying more because you want more. Because if you don't need all of these pro features, you can get the iPad Air 2 for, what, $150 less. And it's not as fast, and it doesn't do the pencil, and it doesn't have the True Tone. But it's got, and it doesn't have that camera, the high-quality camera. But it's got and it doesn't have that camera the high quality camera but it's cheaper and so i think uh i think the slot for this is um it's it you pay more to get more it's going to be the top of the line stuff and then it's just a matter of what you you know what screen size you want do you want to have a heavier bulkier but beautiful giant screen ipad pro or do
Starting point is 00:26:07 you want one that's can't doesn't fit as much stuff in split view and you know it's but but is uh but is uh much lighter and smaller and easier to carry around and and those are the differentiators i think do you think that the type of tasks that people would do on these ipads would be different do you think that there is you know say you've got the the crowd of people um now that are switching more to ipads for work like me and you're doing more of it and we obviously just federico and you know many people we know are starting to transition more and more of their stuff like that is the current meme whether you like it or to transition more and more of their stuff. That is the current meme. Whether you like it or not, people are doing more of this stuff.
Starting point is 00:26:57 Do you think that that kind of transition is better served to the 12.9 than the 9.7? I think it's a personal decision, right? I mean, I do think it has to do with... And it's not just, I mean, we talk about this a lot, but with computers sometimes, there's so many different variables that go into it. Because what makes somebody select a MacBook or what makes somebody select a MacBook Air versus a Retina MacBook Pro? And then within those, what makes somebody select the 15 or the 13 or the or the 13 or the 11 um that has to do with how they use it uh in terms of personal style the tools they're using just you know like we were talking before we came on the air about the difference between you you like to put things in full screen mode and have some different spaces and i just had
Starting point is 00:27:43 everything in one space. So some personal style comes into some of these decisions, I think, and on the iPads as well. And then physical issues too. It's like, where are you using it? And how are you carrying it around? And what's most comfortable for you? And all of that factors into it.
Starting point is 00:28:04 So I feel like it's good that we have choices because not everybody wants exactly the same thing. But that the difference between the one and the other really is a personal decision based on what your values are, what's more important to you and what's less important to me. And for me, I've really, with the the big one, I feel like it by having all that extra screen space, I don't mind the weight and bulk, although it's definitely noticeable. And I like what I get in return. I like the fact that it's basically sidelined my, my MacBook Air, because of that. But I could, you know, I can see that for most people, it's probably the other way, which is this, you know i i'm comfortable with
Starting point is 00:28:46 that screen the size that it is i don't need the extra the extra room for what i'm trying to do um whether it's sketching things or or you know writing emails or whatever they're doing tell you why some of the reasons i'm asking this question is i'm trying to understand something about myself that i haven't got an answer to right now and it's did the ipad pro show me that i could do work on the ipad or is the ipad pro the large one the only ipad i can do my work on right was it going to happen anyway like would i have transit made this transition eventually even with the air 2 or was it or is it only because of the screen size and the real estate that makes me want to do that that's what i can't understand like was the advancements made in ios 9 and the way that that was starting to move, would that have always pushed me in this
Starting point is 00:29:45 direction? Or was it that product, the big product that made me make that decision? And it's one of the reasons why I have my, I updated my, and turned on basically my Air 2 a couple of days ago, just to kind of, because I haven't touched it since I got the Pro. And I was starting to move more stuff over to that I remember you know the split screen stuff when all of that started to hit it was making me like using the iPad more and more again but I'm not sure if I really would have taken the big leaps that I have now and my preference being just that device like I when I went to Romania it's the first time I've made a trip like that I didn't have a Mac with me
Starting point is 00:30:25 I didn't take it and it was totally fine and I was working on that trip and I'm trying to understand like would like say Apple released the 9.7 inch pro first would I have felt the same about that device I don't know I don't know it's uh yeah it's hard to say. I think it all kind of got wrapped up together. Using the 9.7-inch iPad Pro now, I feel like a lot of the stuff that I'm doing on the bigger ipad pro i can do on it and it's fine but i having had the experience on the larger screen i you know what was it i think i heard mark arm and say on atp the other week uh you know once you get the bigger screen you never say you never go back to the smaller screen you're like why would i do that? Bigger screens are better. And that's not entirely true because if there's a reason enough, like I went to the 11-inch MacBook Air, right? That was a smaller laptop than I had used before. But I went to it because it was so small and light and portable and that was all great.
Starting point is 00:31:48 was all great. But my point is that using the 9.7 now after using the 12.9, I say to myself, boy, this is really, you know, this is really tight. This is really, you know, there's not as much stuff on the screen. And if I'm not using the keyboard, that keyboard slides up and gets in the way. I don't, I also don't like the classic iPad keyboard now that I've spent time with that iPad Pro keyboard that's full-sized and has the number row and all of that. It looks like a toy keyboard. I know. It looks like my first keyboard. And so I think if we were in the context of the iPad Air 2 and then the next thing that came out was the iPad Pro 9.7-inch inch i think it would be uh a little bit of a step
Starting point is 00:32:26 forward i think it would be a little less exciting for those of us who don't use the apple pencil especially because i think that's a big part of this um so so i think it would not have been as big a step i think the 12.9 was a big step because it added all of the kind of pro features and the screen size, you know, split view and slide over. Although they're nice on the smaller models, like split view is made for the 12.9. Like it is so powerful in there. And it's more, it's a compromised experience. Probably why they did it right in the first place. I think, yeah, I think that's exactly it.
Starting point is 00:33:02 So what are we going to do with a huge iPad screen? Well, if we're going to have a screen that big, we better be able to run more than one app in it. It's like you really see, like, they had an idea for that product. They tried it out and they were like, no, this is silly. It's like these apps are just huge now. We need to think about this again. Right, right.
Starting point is 00:33:21 So I guess I've come by wandering through this train of thought. I guess what I would say is that I don't think the iPad 9.7 inch iPad Pro would have been as impressive to you or me if it was just the follow up to the Air 2 and there had been no larger model because the screen size is part of the story of the appeal of that product. Now, for a lot of people, it's not a reason enough, I think. But you could also make an argument that the 9.7 is a nice product that people are going to like, but that having the 12.9 out there, hovering out there, is going to, as time goes on, possibly appeal to some of those people who think, boy, this is really all great, but what I really need is more, you know, more screen space for the stuff that I'm doing. And it's, you know, it's available for them once they make that decision too. And it is that line of thinking that gets John Siracusa's 25-inch iPad, right? You know, that's the line of thinking.
Starting point is 00:34:20 Ultimately, I think that's probably true. Like, if there's a market for it, this is, you know, we'll talk about the iPhone SE, I imagine, in a little bit. But this is the same idea that there used to be a time when Apple made a product, right? And it was like, they would find the sweet spot. They'd be like, yeah, okay, this is the sweet spot. Here's the iPhone. This is the sweet spot. Here's the iPad. And they don't do that anymore. They have the freedom now to make more than one product in a product line. And they get to hit more of those spots because there are people who have interests outside of the sweet spot, even if it's the sweetest of the spots. There are many other spots. So that's the beauty of having this iPad line the way it is now is that that 12.9 inch is out there. line the way it is now is that that 12.9 inch is is out there just like you know 13 inch macbook pro may be the sweet spot but 15 is there and for some people it's a way better product and i always felt that way about being the 11 inch air user is that i never considered the 11 inch air to be uh arguably the most uh valid laptop that Apple makes for the most people. I never felt that way.
Starting point is 00:35:27 It was always an outlier. But I was happy that there were enough of us who wanted that product that they made that product. So does this have a place for you? Do you think that this is something you'd want to have around? The 9.7 yeah yeah uh well nah nah nah no i i would have to if my if my life was different my my decisions might be different but for the way that i live my life now the 12.9 makes the most sense for me i think um uh when i travel with it i've got a bag and i'm taking it with me this this the lightness if i was in something where just i needed something that was as light as possible something i could
Starting point is 00:36:14 just uh carry with me with a keyboard and do work if i was maybe commuting on a bus or a train or something like that i might be more uh inclined to to do the 9.7 i suppose but um but i i don't think i want i would want to go back from the from the 12.9 okay one thing i've been i've been looking at this you know just just as you do especially because last time when this well when we had the had the Pro come out originally, one of the big stories that we were covering quite a lot, and we're talking a lot about this, we gave it quite a lot of time, was the constraints that Apple seemed to have over the whole product line.
Starting point is 00:36:57 The pencil and the keyboard were really, really badly backordered from the get-go. Right. Now, the pencil seems pretty much fine now. They've been producing that for a while. But the keyboard cover, the smart keyboard for the 9.7-inch, is also multiple weeks backordered. Yeah. This seems like a very strange thing to happen again.
Starting point is 00:37:19 Well, it's a new product, right? So they're ramping it. So that seems to be the story, which is not a new story for Apple. Apple has, throughout its recent history, had supply constraint problems with new products. And that feels like, and I wonder how much of that is, they're doing a better job with iPhones and things now. But I wonder how much of that, too, is also tied to secrecy. There's certain stuff they could probably do to make it ramp faster,
Starting point is 00:37:46 but they can't because they don't want to give away things. I don't know. But like the pencil is a good example where it seems to be flowing a lot more freely now
Starting point is 00:37:55 because they've been making them for a while. And that doesn't just mean they have them in stock. It also means that the production line is not being stopped every two hours
Starting point is 00:38:04 because there's a problem. They've kind of figured out how to make these things at scale. But the iPad itself doesn't seem to be having problems and the original Pro did. And you'd like to think that they have a better idea of how to make this keyboard cover because they make the other one. It was just a peculiar thing for me to see that this is a story again or at least a thing again after last time it just seems like a strange thing to occur because even though you know these are all separate items that go into this product line
Starting point is 00:38:37 this product really is complete for many people when you own all of the component pieces that the pencil on the keyboard i also wonder i, that smart keyboard is a very strange product. It's this, you know, the fabric, the ablated fabric and all of the way it's constructed. I do wonder if it's complicated to produce that. It looks like it is, yes. more popular product because it's the mainstream size iPad that they're going to, even if they're making a lot more of them, they could still hit shortages immediately because they're probably selling a lot more of them. So I don't know. We didn't even mention, although I mentioned it in my story that we were talking about earlier, I asked again about these these keyboards because this does seem to be one of the defining like with
Starting point is 00:39:46 like the pencil these are the defining aspects of this product what makes an iPad and iPad Pro it's the pencil and the keyboard and there have been no smart connector accessories released since the last iPad was released this is, there are now three smart connector accessories, and it's the two smart keyboards and the Logitech Create. Those are the only ones that have been released, which is weird. And I asked, you know, I asked Apple, is there a program? Yes, there's a licensing program. Is there stuff in the works? Yeah, there's stuff in the works, but where, where are they? So that, that may suggest that it's more difficult to make these products or expensive to make them than we thought. Perhaps there are issues with the smart connector
Starting point is 00:40:32 format, or perhaps there are issues with what you have to pay Apple to use it. I don't know, but that's an interesting part of it. And then also, the last time I talked to Apple about this, when the iPad Pro came out, they said that international keyboards would follow. They're still following, but who knows what they're following. And I asked again, and they said, same story. They will follow. They aren't backing off of their idea that there will be international keyboard layouts and the funny thing is they could do what they did in the software keyboard for the 12.9 inch ipad pro which is uh they could label an international key set on the keys
Starting point is 00:41:19 that are shaped for the u.s key set yeah i would prefer them to just not bother if that's what they're going to do well they haven't bothered yet so yeah if they if they were just going to change the glyphs then there's no point doing it they might as well just leave it as it is yeah i i i think i agree with that um because the biggest problem we have is that the key shapes are different right that's the key shapes are different so so this is the um i i bring that up to say that i think that's a part of this too which is obviously there are some production issues with this keyboard because they have they have talked about doing an international layout and they haven't yeah they went on record at the 12.9 launch about it so yes they did and they and they restated it last week and yet where is it yeah good point where where where is that and so i think that
Starting point is 00:42:07 feeds into perhaps shortages of this stuff is that it's a complicated product it's hard to ship it at volume and they have been unable to to do a variation of it at this point for um for other markets so i don't know it's a it's a strange thing to see. Another quibble with the accessories is that the smart covers do not transfer over from the airline. The magnets are different, which is a strange thing to do, I think, because these covers are very expensive now. They're like $50. I would love to know if there's a real technical reason and my guess is that there is my my guess is that there's a reason that it's different and that apple's not just breaking compatibility because they want to sell more
Starting point is 00:42:56 accessories although that's possible i think i feel like that's never the primary justification for apple to do something they may also be well aware that they're going to sell more accessories if they make them incompatible. But having talked to those people a lot, I doubt it's ever the primary reason. It's just sort of like a bonus that comes along with it that everybody has to spend another $50. It could have something to do with the placement of the magnets on the edge because of the smart connector
Starting point is 00:43:30 that the smart connector kind of makes the old style not compatible because they had to move stuff around in order to make the smart connector where it is. It's also possible that this has to do with a problem with the existing smart cover design that they've been dying to fix for a while. Like, because the new smart covers also come out further. There's more, they're a little bit wider. There's actually more coverage, which means that if you place your iPad face down,
Starting point is 00:44:04 you can see like more cover sticking out the edge it doesn't go like right on the screen top it kind of sticks out a little bit and some people are complaining about that that they think that looks ugly but I I look at that and I wonder if maybe this is the people who make these accessories saying like we had a lot of problems where they were coming open. So we changed the magnet. You know, we've been working on a better smart cover for a couple of years now
Starting point is 00:44:30 because we weren't satisfied with that. They never said anything like that though. So that may or may not be the case. But I wonder, because they said nothing. They like literally just announced that there are iPad Pro smart covers. And yes, I tried with the old iPad Air smart covers and it totally doesn't work. So the clasp is reversed. The polarity on the clasp is reversed. I think intentionally to say
Starting point is 00:44:54 this is not, do not eat. This is not a product you can use. But yeah, so that's extra money for anybody who's upgrading. You don't get to use your old case or unless it's, yeah, if it relies on the magnets at all, it's not going to be compatible. Let's talk about some other stuff. Maybe the iPhone. I have a watch band I want to talk about. Do you have anything else you wanted to just to wrap up on the iPad? I guess people should look out for your full review on Six Colors.
Starting point is 00:45:24 Yeah, it will happen at some point. I'm looking at it now, but it's not done. The True Tone, I just wanted to say it's a cool feature. I'm not sure anybody would say that it's a must-have feature but it does do what it says um it it does uh dynamically change the color temperature of the screen to try and match it to fit it more into your room i found a much better feature than the auto brightness feature which has always really bugged me because i felt like it was adjusting the brightness and my eyes had already adjusted to the screen brightness and then it would pull the rug out from under me. I don't feel that way about True Tone. The True Tone is, you know, in my indoors with incandescent light,
Starting point is 00:46:15 it does a pretty good job of sort of yellowing everything up, making it all feel much more natural and it's a fun feature. Does it do much to help reading outdoors um no okay no and i think the the reduction in glare is a little bit i mean it's not overstated but i think we need to not make too big a deal over the fact that it's got less glare it's the same glare glare coating as the last one the difference is just they've changed some of the underlayers to be a little less glary. But, you know, I took it outside and still struggled in the shade to read. And certainly in the sun, struggled to read. It's no Kindle, right?
Starting point is 00:46:55 No, I mean, I cranked up the brightness all the way. I said the volume, the light volume. Cranked up the brightness all the way. And, you know, it was still in, in bright sunlight, it comes across as being, um, black text on a kind of gray background. It's the contrast. It's just, you know, it's not, it's not bright enough and the, and there's still glare, even though it's less glary. There's still glare. And you compare that, it's still a backlit screen competing against the sun. And a Kindle is a reflective screen working with the sun. So, you know, it's not, don't kid yourself. Can you read outside with an iPad Pro?
Starting point is 00:47:39 Sure. But I wouldn't choose to do it, especially in bright sunlight. Anything else? I mean, the camera is the camera you know from the iPad or the iPhone. And that's great that they did that. That's what I would say. Oh, and also, because of geometry, if you lay it down, even though it's got a camera bump, if you lay it down on a table, it doesn't rock or anything. I saw a tweet go by that said that somebody measured it and that the actual iPad itself is ever so slightly curved to help balance that out. It's possible.
Starting point is 00:48:19 I don't know if that's true, but if that is true, that's such an Apple thing to do, right? That's true, but if that is true, that's such an Apple thing to do, right? I think the biggest thing is that it's got so much more surface area that the difference in angles from the corners is not over distance. It's not appreciable. So it's built to sit on those four edges and not rock, and it doesn't. Yeah, it treats the camera thing as the edge. Which is also an interesting thing to me, because I feel like you would so easily scratch that camera.
Starting point is 00:48:54 But I would like to think that they thought about that. Just feel like putting the device up and down, up and down, hitting the table, hitting the desk, hitting the concrete. I don't know. I feel like it maybe hasn't been so much of an issue on previous models but i feel like it could be more here but we'll see what happens there i guess over time jason would you like to tell the world about mail route yes i would this episode of upgrade of course brought to you by our friends at MailRoute. They can be your friends, too. And I recommend that you make friends with MailRoute because they are the email experts. They have actually been focusing exclusively on email protection since 1997.
Starting point is 00:49:38 If you think that I was working at Macworld since forever, I went to work at Macworld in 1997. So if that is by the transitive property, then MailRoute's been doing this forever. Their interface is easy to use. It's loaded with administrative tools. They've got an API. And all of it is designed to make your life spam free. So IT departments are always being asked to do more, including protecting their users from spam and virus attacks. And a lot of the trusted hardware and software options out there have faded away, Postini and MXLogic. But MailRoute is here. MailRoute is focused just on this aspect, just protecting email and hardware from spam, viruses, and other attacks. That's all they do. And they do it in the cloud. You don't
Starting point is 00:50:22 have to buy any hardware or software from them. If you own your own domain, that's all you need to use MailRoute. You transfer your MX record to point it at MailRoute servers. MailRoute servers sit between your mail servers and the big bad internet and filter out the bad stuff and deliver the good stuff to you. They support LDAP,
Starting point is 00:50:40 Active Directory, TLS, mailbagging. The bagging of mail. That's what mailbagging is. Outbound relay, everything you would want from the people handling your mail, and they've got price matching for McAfee MX Logic customers. So you too can stop spam from reaching your server today with a free 30-day trial of MailRoute.
Starting point is 00:50:59 Try for 30 days. There's no reason not to. You go to mailroute.net slash upgrade. And if you use that address, you will get 10% off for the lifetime of your account. That's right. The entire time you've got a 10% off. Or if you don't want to go to the web and want to send an email, they're the email experts. Just email them at sales at mail route.net. And that will work too. This is what they do. do protecting your email from spam and
Starting point is 00:51:25 viruses they do it better and they've been doing it longer than anyone else so go to mail route.net slash upgrade today and thank you to our friends at mail route thank you mail route so i wanted to check out one of these woven nylon bands for the apple watch um by the time that I could put my order in, there was very little available in stores. I put on order the Royal Blue, as I figured that would be the color that I would like the most. But I went via my Apple store just a few days ago, before the iPad Pros were there, and they had the golden red version in stock in 42. It was the only one that they had. And I figured, I'll give it a go.
Starting point is 00:52:11 I wasn't sure what I thought about the color, but I thought I'd give it a go. So I've been wearing this thing for a few days, and I really like it. A lot, actually. I think I actually prefer it to sport bands. It looks a lot better than i expected it's actually quite a nice understated classy look and the buckle which is very much like the
Starting point is 00:52:32 leather buckle um the little metal buckle on it it's very classy um it does a great job i find the nylon to be very comfortable itself and it's solving a problem that I was having with my sport bands in that I can wear it tighter, more comfortably. I've found recently that my watch band is a little loose. I have been on a diet. I don't know if that's affected it. Maybe it's all in my head, but I found that I really wanted to tighten my sport band up a little
Starting point is 00:53:05 bit but in doing so it was either too tight or just a little too loose in so much that sometimes i was finding throughout the day that my watch was locking itself because it wasn't in great contact with my skin um and whilst i do find the sport bands to still be great i love the way they look i'm actually probably going to buy one of the yellow ones. I think I'm going to be wearing the nylon band more. It's thinner. It feels less comfortable. It's lighter.
Starting point is 00:53:35 It feels less comfortable? More, I meant less cumbersome. Okay. I'm mixing up the words comfortable and cumbersome now. I almost got you there. I almost trapped you. So close. So I will restate that. It is less cumbersome now. I almost got you there. I almost trapped you. So close. So I will restate that.
Starting point is 00:53:49 It is less cumbersome because it's lighter and thinner, and I find it just the texture of the material to be more comfortable. I never really found that I was sweaty or anything from sport bands. I never found them itchy in any way or anything like that. I know that some people have. But I just think that overall overall this is a nicer feeling band than the sport band i'm a big fan of this actually i think it sits better as well um because what some of the sport bands what they do is they kind of seem to take their own shape right so you the edges where the lugs go they kind of break out and then loop back around your wrist,
Starting point is 00:54:26 if that makes sense. So it leaves some air gaps in the corners. The nylon band doesn't do that. It feels to wrap to my wrist a lot more. And Idina tried one on and she has tiny, tiny wrists, and it really fit her a lot better as well than the sport band does, where you could put like a pencil in between the watch and her arm and you know around where the the lugs go so yeah i think that this is a really great product and in all honesty i can see why the sport now seems to by default come with one of these i think it's actually a a better starting band than the sport band and now i really feel that the sport band is fulfilling its original goal in that it is for sport i've been surprised at how much i like the sport band i love the sport
Starting point is 00:55:16 bands don't get me wrong like i really do and i will continue to wear them but the nylon band i actually think is a is a better band interesting i will have to try one you should yeah fine maybe grab the black one or something right because some of the colors are strange there's a really kind of i think a little bit cheeky thing that apple have done there are a couple of colors where in the reverse they're different. So you can kind of see this if you look at the store, and I want to bring it up so I can tell you the actual colors where I seem to have noticed this from. And I've seen people asking in the FAQs if these are reversible.
Starting point is 00:55:58 They're not reversible. The lugs don't work in the opposite. The band won't clasp together. But so if you take a look at maybe the gold and red and the gold and royal blue, if you look at the images, the colors reverse. So the red is on the outside and the gold red. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:56:21 And the blue is on, there's blue on the inside. And then when you select the other one it's the opposite and i think that's really interesting because that's apple they're making one strap and just putting the buckles on differently that's interesting right like that is a supply chain thing that is maximizing production fascinating yeah it was you know i don't really feel too strongly about this, but I just think that it's an interesting thing that they're doing at least.
Starting point is 00:56:51 But yeah, I've got a royal blue one on the way too because that's my favorite looking of all the colors on the site. So I'm excited to try out more of these because I'm obsessed with buying watch bands. Yeah, clearly. Thank you. Well, I'm glad somebody is out there trying all the watch bands yeah clearly thank you well i'm glad somebody is uh out there
Starting point is 00:57:07 trying all the watch bands i'm on the beat and i'm and i'm glad it's not me i'm on the watch band beat yep iphone se yeah this is a you know as with many of the reviews that i've read of this product uh they kind of write themselves in a lot of ways, right? Like, if you know what the 5S is, you know what this is. Yeah. But, you know, I enjoyed reading your review as I did others,
Starting point is 00:57:37 mainly just for the thinking that goes into the product. And one of my favorite parts about your review is kind of breaking down the, should you make this decision and the ramifications of making the decision of going back to the SE, right? Like, yeah, this feels great
Starting point is 00:57:55 and would fit in with the product that you have now. But in about six months time, you're going to feel bad again. Yeah, I think that's the key uh i think what i said in my review was this is the product for people who are committed to the four inch phone lifestyle yeah because if if you if you like the four inch phone but the most important thing is to be on the cutting edge you will you will not be on the cutting edge for very long with this phone, for the first six months of its life, maybe, and then not again. And for, I think, a lot of people,
Starting point is 00:58:33 the people who are going to be buying this phone, that's fine, right? Either they don't care, and this is the cheapest iPhone, and it works for them, or they don't care because they want the four inch phone. And it's way better than the 5s. And so, yay, they win. But if you're somebody like John Gruber, who really loves the four inch size and design, but let's be serious as a giant tech nerd, and is going to get the iPhone 7 when it comes out, because it's going to have some must have features that he's going to have to have. And that'll be, that's fine for Gruber, as they say, because he's going to get them all and he's a very, you know, into this sort of thing.
Starting point is 00:59:18 This is his thing. This is what he does. So of course he's going to try all those things out. But if you're just a regular person who gets a phone every couple of years, that's bad. That's a bad direction to go, because if you get this phone now, you know, it's not it's currently at the cutting edge. But that cut was made last fall. So it's already it's it's not.
Starting point is 00:59:39 I had a couple of people quibble when I said that this is sort of 2012 design and 2015 technology. They're like, well, no, it's 2016 technology. It's like, well, no, it's 2015 technology. 2016 technology will be out this fall. This is last fall's model. It's already aging tech. 2016 technology includes True Tone, right? That's 2016 technology.
Starting point is 01:00:02 I suppose so. Maybe not on an iPhone. Maybe. We'll see. But whatever comes out this fall, that'll be the cutting edge. So this is a phone that is not for people who are obsessed with the cutting edge latest features of Apple's products, but are more concerned with having a phone that they like that is the design and a size that they like or a price that they like. And there will never be a better time to buy the iPhone SE because they'll probably be selling it in a year and a half too.
Starting point is 01:00:32 And it'll be way behind then. And I hope that they will update this, I don't think every year, but maybe every other year. We'll just sort of put some new internals or they'll replace it with a new design. But it remains a four. By the way, I feel like we haven't sufficiently gloated enough given how much we talked about the merits of a four-inch iPhone like a year ago. Like to the point where I think people started to say stop talking about the four-inch iPhone. It's never going to happen. But it happened.
Starting point is 01:01:01 You were right on that one. You have been saying it. Hashtag Jason was right yeah you did it um so let's there we took the moment so uh so yeah that that's the se it's a great phone and you just need to know like this if this is going to be the phone you're committing to use for the next few years not because it's necessarily even on a contract but it's you know it it costs uh it has a pretty decent price tag you want to you want to buy a phone and then use it for a while uh be aware that if you're the kind
Starting point is 01:01:31 of person who gets lured by the siren song of the latest apple features that come every fall this is not the phone for you if you've been totally fine on the 5s for a long time and you wanted that because you loved it you probably shouldn't hesitate too much to get this because it's perfect you are already somebody who is okay with waiting a few years because you've waited a few years so exactly look at this i think this should be a serious consideration for people unless you like shiny and new if you like shiny and new it doesn't look shiny and new right everyone who bought everyone who has a 5s or a 5 that they're still using this is the phone for them i i think because otherwise um unless they've you know
Starting point is 01:02:13 really just been they've got other reasons let's say to wait to buy a new phone like presumably they've they've held on because they are comfortable with this phone and they have not liked the look of the new phone. So, you know, I think for those people, this is it. You get your same phone that you're comfortable with. But now it's got almost all of the top of the line features of these other phones. So you'll get Apple Pay now. And you'll get the faster processor.
Starting point is 01:02:41 And you'll get the way better camera. But it'll still feel like your phone it'll fit it'll fit in your case unlike the ipad pro which broke all those accessories um our our friends at studio neat uh made the point of pointing out that they've got the glyph is now available for the iphone se because it's just an iphone if. All iPhone 5 cases now have more value. It's amazing. I don't really know what else to say about this. No, no. I think that's it.
Starting point is 01:03:14 I think that's the story. As I said to Wren last week, writing reviews of these things is a challenge. I know I mentioned that on the Six Colors podcast too last week. And I think I said on the Six Colors podcast, my reviews are going to be kind of weird because there's nothing new. It's sort of mostly what's new is just the mixing around and the strategy. The marketing. that here, which is, I think, in the end, it's like, who should buy this? And, you know, should I consider it? And I feel like there's a fairly clear dividing line, which is like, does it matter that you're on the cutting edge, because this is never going to be the cutting edge phone? Or does the do the intangibles of this product matter more? And like we were saying about iPads and laptops and things like that, Apple is now free to sell phones in three different sizes
Starting point is 01:04:02 that are using their current tech. And you get to pick based on some other issues of, you know, do you want the really large phone like you do, Mike, right? Or do you want the really small phone? You have choices. And for the people who want this because it is a four-inch phone, because they're comfortable with that size and that design, they're going to be really really happy and that's what it's there for yeah that's the product right that's why it's here now that's why it's announced now it's it's simple they're adding something to the line uh there's not going to be another one in september they didn't compromise and make it
Starting point is 01:04:42 like an iphone 6 that it's it's the processor from the 6S. So it's not already a year and a half old tech. It's the current top of the line model tech for a much lower price. With a couple of examples, it doesn't do 3D touch, right? And the front facing camera's not very good. But yeah, it's pretty great for what it is and at a pretty great price, the lowest brand-new iPhone price ever. So there's a lot going for it. But, yeah, that's about it. That's how it works.
Starting point is 01:05:17 Aloha. Hello. This week's episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the simplest way for anyone to create a beautiful landing page, website, or online store. Start booting your own website today at squarespace.com and use the offer code UPGRADE at checkout to get 10% off your purchase. With easy-to-use tools and templates, Squarespace helps you capture every detail of what drives you because if it's worth the effort, it's worth sharing with the world. I'm working on a little side project right now
Starting point is 01:05:44 and I'm getting ready to set up a Squarespace site for it because it needs a landing page and it needs an email address and it needs some photos. I'm basically going to set up one of their great cover pages. They all have beautiful templates. It's really easy to just drag and drop that stuff together. You can just drag images from your desktop onto the web page and it just appears all of this stuff with Squarespace is so simple they have really great tools they're powerful though as well I mean that's what I like about it it's easy to build but it's looked after it's adapted it doesn't matter what you know it doesn't matter what your skill level is you have all of the tools that you need to put together something that looks professionally designed. I wouldn't be able to do this in any other way because I just don't
Starting point is 01:06:28 know how. And this is why they're trusted by millions of people around the world. They ensure security and stability along with the state-of-the-art technology that they provide. They're backed up with 24-7 support. They have a commerce platform, rock-solid fast hosting, and just so much more. Squarespace will also give you a free domain name if you sign up for a year and their plans start at just eight dollars a month you can sign up for a free trial today with no credit card required start putting your own website straight away go to squarespace.com to do that when you decide to sign up for squarespace make sure that you use the offer code upgrade to get 10 of your first purchase and show your support for this show
Starting point is 01:07:04 top tip if you buy an annual plan you'll get 10 off off your first purchase and share your support for this show. Top tip. If you buy an annual plan, you'll get 10% off the entire year. Bear that in mind. Thank you so much to Squarespace for their support of this show and relay FM. It's ask upgrade time. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:07:18 Ask upgrade. All right. All right. We had fun last week. It was all right. It's we had fun last week with the, the, I was doing some Bob's burgers there. The we had fun last week. It was... All right. We had fun last week with the... I was doing some Bob's Burgers there.
Starting point is 01:07:28 We had fun last week. It was kind of cool to be able to curate the questions and some of the Ask Upgrade questions for Serenity. It was a lot of fun. But it's good that you're back. It's classic Ask Upgrade now. Yeah, it was nice and extended. I think that was a good way of doing it
Starting point is 01:07:41 because there were very specific questions that people may have pent up demand to ask that we can't usually answer because we don't have the skills that Ren has. Start off with a question from Harlequin today. I was wondering what happened to the Google Play podcast initiative, if I remember correctly. You guys spoke about it a while back.
Starting point is 01:07:58 I would love to know. Nothing so far, I don't think. It's difficult for me to know because it's not available at all in the UK right now. I believe that Google Play Podcast is available for some people in the US, but as of right now, if there is anything going on, Google are not making a massive fanfare about it. going on, Google are not making a massive fanfare about it. Yeah, I haven't even looked yet. I should do that. I have my little test Android phone here. Yep. We've checked it out and we're looking at it for RelayFM. But in regards to a big launch,
Starting point is 01:08:39 I don't actually think that's happened yet. No, it seems like they're testing it. Yeah, I think they've got a small group of people in but like i can't do anything i can't even if i log on in the uk i can't even get any information so i believe i trust that it is still happening and still coming um but i think google was still trying to iron out some of the kinks on their end um but yeah we're looking into it and i'm excited about it i am actually genuinely excited about it it. There's a lot of movement right now in the podcast world directory wise. We have iTunes and we've had iTunes forever but I feel like there's going to be another one whether it will be Google or Spotify or someone. There's going to be another big player
Starting point is 01:09:19 at some point and I'm very interested to see where that ends up shaking out. Yeah because essentially there's been no major directory player in podcasting since apple launched its directory in like 2005 yep it's all this all this growth has sort of flowered with i mean that's the beauty of the decentralization of it but at the same time it makes discovery problematic if you talk to like like the way we know that overcast works like overcast does a lot of checking against the itunes directory yeah um you know just to make sure something is public for example that's one of the things it will do and that's just it's
Starting point is 01:09:58 fascinating that you know there's no you know the truth is in the cloud, right? What's the truth of whether a podcast exists and how you search it? Right now, the truth is iTunes for podcasts. And that's fine because that's been a fairly open system, unlike the App Store. You know, basically, you can get your podcast into iTunes quite easily. And Apple's just added some new tools for podcasters to control. That used to all be kind of totally opaque, except for a few partners. And now there's more- It's more based on iTunes Connect now, which is fantastic.
Starting point is 01:10:34 Yeah, so it's a better system, but it's the only one. And the only one is never, that's never good that you only have the one, and it's controlled by this one company. So I think it'll be more of a pain for all of us i suppose as podcasters but i think for podcast listeners it'll be good to have a little more um you know more more diversity in the um in the places that you can look for podcasts than than right now yeah i'm i'm just excited about the idea of there being something that can play podcasts on basically every android phone right out of the box yeah well let's see let's see how
Starting point is 01:11:12 they let's see how they do it right i worry that they're going to screw it up because they just fundamentally we talked about this a while ago putting it inside google music it's not music so that's a bad place to put it, but that's where it is. That's where Apple started. Yeah, there you go. Jinx. But it's, you know,
Starting point is 01:11:32 there may be eventually if it gets traction, they'll split it out again, but time will tell. That would be nice. That would be nice. Yes, that would be the sweetest thing is if every Android phone
Starting point is 01:11:41 came with a dedicated Google Podcast app. That would be awesome. Good for podcasts if every android phone came with a dedicated google podcast app that would be awesome good for podcasts eric asked what are your favorite non-drawing apps for use with the apple pencil i've been playing super giant games transistor and it's great in the same vein transistor is like a point and click game um i would recommend crash lands as a similar kind of thing games where it's like point and click you know you tap to go here tap to interact the apple pencil is amazing for that because you weren't tapping directly onto the screen it feels real good i i think these types of games where you typically are putting multiple
Starting point is 01:12:16 hours of work into it's better on your hands and actually feels more comfortable to use the apple pencil or something like that so i i recommend uh kind of thing. But as I've mentioned before, all apps, in my opinion, are improved when navigating with the Apple Pencil. And thank you, Apple, for allowing me to continue doing that. Rob wrote in, this is an Inside Baseball question, but how often do you guys re-evaluate
Starting point is 01:12:42 or tweak your editing or effect settings for your podcasts? I make small tweaks to EQs and levels and compression frequently. And there can be many different things that might do that. You know, I'm like listening to maybe this episode and I hear it and as I'm listening back, I'm like, ah, Jason sounds a little bit different to me here. I'll change that. You know, like today, my voice is a little hoarser than usual. So I might make some slight changes there. I might need to increase my volume more than usual. I make little tweaks like that quite frequently.
Starting point is 01:13:14 But in regards to re-evaluating something on a bigger level, I only really tend to do that kind of thing when there's a big change, an environment change, an equipment change, or a software change on either my side or a guest or host's side before I sit down and really will spend hours working on new EQs or something, which is only something I very basically understand. And my kind of gauge for this stuff is how does it sound to me? And that's how I make the change. If I think it sounds good, then that's what I do. It's just a personal preference thing. I think for a lot of people, I think, do it that way.
Starting point is 01:13:50 Whether they understand it or not, it's how it sounds to their ear. Like me and you master the show differently because it's just the way it sounds to us. Yeah, and I've got different presets. I also have presets. I do adjust them basically per show most of the time to try to get the levels to be in so that there's not
Starting point is 01:14:06 like a loud person and a quiet person um and i've got presets for for eq and compression um although i always change the compression i think my my default compression should probably be changed and i'll do that but there's some inertia there um and then yeah we do have different presets which is interesting for a while we were talking about how i had i had a bunch of presets in logic and you didn't um you've sort of slowly added some more effects over time yeah i was a little bit intimidated yeah well it is intimidating yes that stuff is not it's not made for people who are not sort of audio engineers to understand and and uh so we're you know and and likewise i don't have a listening party for every podcast i put out it's what goes into my ears and i will um that's i
Starting point is 01:14:53 usually edit on the speakers and not on my in-ear headphones i always edit on headphones uh i yeah i decided um i do some i mean I'm also in a space by myself. I can turn it up pretty loud when I'm, when I'm looking for noises and all of that. But I think I found that I, um, I obsessed a little too much on the headphones, but I sometimes do edit on headphones. What I'll do sometimes is if it's a long show and I'm doing like a full listen through, I will, I will get the audio sounding right on headphones. Then I will switch to speakers because it's more comfortable if you're sitting down and editing something for three or four hours.
Starting point is 01:15:31 I will just make sure I've got the audio levels correct, I've got the EQ correct, and then I'll switch over to my speakers. Sometimes I might play a video game or something whilst I'm editing if I'm just listening for something. Interesting. And that would do me well. Okay. Danny wanted to know, will the USB keyboard or Apple USB keyboard work on iPad Pros using the powered lightning USB dongle?
Starting point is 01:15:56 Jason, do you know? Do USB keyboards, are they even noticed by this dongle? Yeah, USB keyboards will work with the old one that isn't powered. Okay, there you go. So most keyboards don't require that much power, and so they just work. I used my crazy clicky mechanical keyboard on the iPad Pro with the old USB dongle,
Starting point is 01:16:20 and it worked fine. So I'm sure you can. I didn't try it again again but it worked on the old one i'm sure it works on the new one i haven't been able to get my hands on one of those yet either that's one of those powered uh usb thingamajigs i just want to play around with that i think there's a lot of interesting stuff going on there and rob wanted to know does the 29 watt usb c to lightning charger uh not charge things other than the ipad pro or just not as fast i have one of those now oh nice yeah i bought one uh it charges everything
Starting point is 01:16:52 yes but it's the ipad pro that it charges and only the big one the 12.9 inch ipad pro has in its lightning connector circuitry support for a higher amount of power intake. And it is glorious. And so if you want, it's that model. And it's not a new charger because it's the charger that they use on the MacBook. But now there's the USB to lightning cable that works. And it'll charge.
Starting point is 01:17:23 This is true with all the lightning stuff it'll charge on anything but it if the device can accept more power it will charge faster and in that case you're getting a super fast charge i've seen quite a few people complain and say that this should have been the charger that came in the box with the ipad pro i actually disagree with that simply because it would have been more difficult in my setup to then have another cable with a different connector as the standard one. Yeah. Now I have, which I'm very happy I have, a two meter lightning cable. So I can keep that in my bag for when I travel because I have one of those Anker 5 USB hub things. Right.
Starting point is 01:18:07 So when I go into a hotel, I have more than enough USBs for me and a companion, you know, whoever's staying in the hotel room with me. I wouldn't have wanted to then have to also bring the USB-C adapter for my iPad Pro. Right. So I now have a lovely long cable, which I'm very happy that I have. It works with any lightning cable, but I like the long one because it is great to have that.
Starting point is 01:18:30 I think having to then have to worry about this USB-C one as well would have been just an extra frustration. So I think they made the right choice with the way that they did it. But I'm now happy that this thing exists and it works and I get this super fast charger with it. That's great
Starting point is 01:18:45 stuff. Yep. So there we go. That's it. That's it. We did it. We did it. We did it again. We're so great at doing this show. And you're back next week? You're not traveling anywhere next week? Not next week, no.
Starting point is 01:19:01 Alright, I'm traveling somewhere next week but I'll be here anyway. I'll be on the podcast next Monday from the desert. Back in the desert. Oh, you're back in the desert again. Yeah. Yeah. So get ready for some air conditioning and some heating up out there in the desert. You say that's when I'll tweak your audio.
Starting point is 01:19:18 Yes, you will. It's a great example where the conditions there, even if I bring my microphone and mixer and everything, the room is very different. And so it'll be a different, and I usually talk quieter because I'm trying not to echo in an echoey room. So there you go. If you want to find our show notes for this week, you can find them in your app of choice. So you can go to relay.fm slash upgrade slash 83. Thanks again to our great sponsors, the people over at mail route, Squarespace and fresh books for helping support this week's show. We'll be back next time. As we said,
Starting point is 01:19:54 if you want to find Jason's work, including his iPad pro review, which will be going up shortly, I expect before the next episode. Yes. Head on over to six colors.com and you'll find that there. If you would like to find me online, head on over to Twitter.
Starting point is 01:20:10 I'm at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Jason is at jsnl, J-S-N-E double L. Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason. Aloha. That's how it works.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.